ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Prosanta Chakrabarty - Ichthyologist
Prosanta Chakrabarty studies fish to help explain the evolution of human beings and our planet.

Why you should listen

Dr. Prosanta Chakrabarty is an Associate Professor and Curator of Fishes at the Museum of Natural Science and Department of Biological Science at Louisiana State University.

Chakrabarty is a systematist and an ichthyologist studying the evolution and biogeography of both freshwater and marine fishes. His work includes studies of Neotropical (Central and South America, Caribbean) and Indo-West Pacific (Indian and Western Pacific Ocean) fishes. His natural history collecting efforts include trips to Japan, Australia, Taiwan, Madagascar, Panama, Kuwait and many other countries. He has discovered over a dozen new species including new anglerfishes and cavefishes.

The LSU Museum of Natural Science fish collection that Chakrabarty oversees includes nearly half a million fish specimens and nearly 10,000 DNA samples covering most major groups of fishes. He earned his PhD at the University of Michigan and his undergraduate degree is from McGill University in Montreal. He has written two books including A Guide to Academia: Getting into and Surviving Grad School, Postdocs and a Research Job. He is also a former Program Director at the National Science Foundation. He was named a TED Fellow in 2016 and a TED Senior Fellow in 2018.

More profile about the speaker
Prosanta Chakrabarty | Speaker | TED.com
TED2016

Prosanta Chakrabarty: Clues to prehistoric times, found in blind cavefish

Prosanta Chakrabarty: Pistas para tempos pré-históricos encontradas em peixes-cegos

Filmed:
1,220,884 views

O bolsita TED Prosanta Chakrabarty explora partes escondidas do mundo em busca de novas espécies de peixes que vivem em cavernas. Essas criaturas subterrâneas desenvolveram adaptações fascinantes, e eles fornecem revelações biológicas sobre a cegueira, bem como indícios geológicos sobre como os continentes se separaram há milhões de anos. Contemple uma reflexão profunda nessa curta palestra.
- Ichthyologist
Prosanta Chakrabarty studies fish to help explain the evolution of human beings and our planet. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:12
Ichthyology,
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"Ichthyology",
Ictiologia, em português,
é o estudo dos peixes.
00:14
the study of fishes.
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00:16
It looks like a big, boring word,
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Parece uma palavra grande e chata,
mas é, na verdade, muito emocionante,
00:18
but it's actually quite exciting,
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00:21
because ichthyology is the only "ology"
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porque "Ichthyology" é o único "ology"
que traz "YOLO" nele.
00:24
with "YOLO" in it.
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00:25
(Laughter)
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(Risos)
A galera descolada da plateia
00:27
Now, to the cool kids in the audience,
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00:29
you already know, YOLO stands for
"you only live once,"
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já sabe que YOLO significa
"you only live once",
e por viver apenas uma vez,
00:33
and because I only have one life,
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00:35
I'm going to spend it doing
what I always dreamt of doing:
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passarei a vida fazendo
o que sempre sonhei fazer:
observando as maravilhas escondidas
do mundo e descobrindo novas espécies.
00:37
seeing the hidden wonders of the world
and discovering new species.
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E é isso que faço.
00:41
And that's what I get to do.
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00:42
Now, in recent years, I really focused
on caves for finding new species.
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Nos últimos anos,
me concentrei em cavernas
para encontrar novas espécies.
00:47
And it turns out, there's lots of new
cavefish species out there.
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E, ao que parece, há muitas novas
espécies de peixe-cego por aí.
Só é preciso saber onde olhar,
e talvez ser magrinho.
00:50
You just have to know where to look,
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00:52
and to maybe be a little thin.
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(Risos)
00:54
(Laughter)
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00:55
Now, cavefishes can tell me
a lot about biology and geology.
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Peixes-cegos podem me dizer
muito sobre biologia e geologia.
Eles podem me dizer como as massas
de terra em torno deles se moveram,
01:00
They can tell me how the landmasses
around them have changed and moved
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01:04
by being stuck in these little holes,
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ao ficarem presos nesses pequenos buracos,
01:06
and they can tell me about
the evolution of sight, by being blind.
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e sobre a evolução da visão,
por serem cegos.
01:11
Now, fish have eyes
that are essentially the same as ours.
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Peixes têm olhos que são essencialmente
semelhantes aos nossos;
todos os vertebrados têm.
01:14
All vertebrates do, and each time
a fish species starts to adapt
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E sempre que uma espécie de peixe
passa a se adaptar
a este ambiente escuro e frio da caverna,
01:18
to this dark, cold, cave environment,
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ao longo de muitas gerações,
eles perdem seus olhos e sua visão
01:20
over many, many generations,
they lose their eyes and their eyesight
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01:24
until the end up like an eyeless
cavefish like this one here.
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até que acabam como um peixe-cego
sem olhos como este aqui.
01:27
Now, each cavefish species
has evolved in a slightly different way,
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Cada espécie de peixe-cego
evoluiu de um modo ligeiramente diferente,
e cada uma tem uma história geológica
e biológica única para nos contar,
01:31
and each one has a unique geological
and biological story to tell us,
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e por isso é tão emocionante
encontrar uma espécie nova.
01:35
and that's why it's so exciting
when we find a new species.
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01:39
So this is a new species
we described, from southern Indiana.
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Esta é uma nova espécie
que descrevemos, do sul de Indiana.
Nós o chamamos de Amblyopsis hoosieri,
o peixe-cego de Indiana.
01:43
We named it Amblyopsis hoosieri,
the Hoosier cavefish.
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(Risos)
01:46
(Laughter)
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01:48
Its closest relatives
are cavefishes in Kentucky,
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Seus parentes mais próximos
são os peixes-cegos de Kentucky,
no sistema de cavernas Mammoth.
01:51
in the Mammoth Cave system.
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01:52
And they start to diverge
when the Ohio River split them
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Eles começam a se diferenciar
quando o rio Ohio os dividiu,
alguns milhões de anos atrás.
01:55
a few million years ago.
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01:57
And in that time they developed
these subtle differences
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E naquele tempo,
desenvolveram diferenças sutis
02:00
in the genetic architecture
behind their blindness.
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na arquitetura genética
por trás de sua cegueira.
02:03
There's this gene called rhodopsin
that's super-critical for sight.
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Existe um gene chamado rodopsina
que é supercrítico para a visão.
Nós temos isso, e essas espécies também,
02:06
We have it, and these species have it too,
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02:09
except one species has lost
all function in that gene,
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mas uma espécie perdeu
toda a função naquele gene,
e a outra a mantém.
02:12
and the other one maintains it.
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02:14
So this sets up this beautiful
natural experiment
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Portanto, isto configura
um belo experimento natural
no qual podemos observar os genes
por trás da nossa visão,
02:18
where we can look at the genes
behind our vision,
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nas raízes da nossa visão.
02:21
and at the very roots of how we can see.
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02:25
But the genes in these cavefishes
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Mas os genes nestes peixes-cegos
02:26
can also tell us
about deep geological time,
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também podem nos dizer
sobre o tempo geológico profundo,
talvez não mais do que nesta espécie aqui.
02:29
maybe no more so
than in this species here.
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Esta é uma nova espécie
que descrevemos de Madagascar
02:32
This is a new species
we described from Madagascar
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a qual chamamos de typhleotris mararybe,
02:34
that we named Typhleotris mararybe.
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02:38
That means "big sickness" in Malagasy,
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que significa "grande doença", em malgaxe,
de tão doente que ficamos
tentando coletar esta espécie.
02:41
for how sick we got trying
to collect this species.
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02:44
Now, believe it or not,
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Agora, acredite ou não,
02:46
swimming around sinkholes
full of dead things
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nadar em buracos cheio de coisas mortas
e cavernas cheias de cocô de morcego
02:48
and cave full of bat poop
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não é o que há de mais inteligente
para fazer com sua vida,
02:50
isn't the smartest thing you could
be doing with your life,
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mas... "YOLO"!
02:53
but YOLO.
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02:55
(Laughter)
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(Risos)
Eu adoro esta espécie,
02:58
Now, I love this species despite the fact
that it tried to kill us,
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apesar de ela ter tentado nos matar,
e isso porque em Madagascar
os parentes mais próximos
03:03
and that's because
this species in Madagascar,
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03:05
its closest relatives
are 6,000 kilometers away,
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desta espécie estão
a 6 mil quilômetros de distância,
os peixes-cegos na Austrália.
03:08
cavefishes in Australia.
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03:10
Now, there's no way a three-inch-long
freshwater cavefish
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Não há como um peixe-cego de água doce
de 7,5 centímetros de comprimento
possa nadar através do Oceano Índico.
03:14
can swim across the Indian Ocean,
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Então, ao comparar o DNA destas espécies,
03:16
so what we found when we compared
the DNA of these species
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03:19
is that they've been separated
for more than 100 million years,
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descobrimos que eles foram separados
há mais de 100 milhões de anos,
por volta da época
que os continentes do sul se separaram.
03:22
or about the time that the southern
continents were last together.
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Na verdade, essas espécies
não se moveram nada;
03:27
So in fact, these species
didn't move at all.
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foram os continentes que as moveram.
03:30
It's the continents that moved them.
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03:31
And so they give us, through their DNA,
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E assim elas nos dão, através de seu DNA,
um modelo e medida precisos
03:33
this precise model and measure
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03:36
of how to date and time
these ancient geological events.
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de como datar e determinar o tempo
desses eventos geológicos antigos.
Esta espécie aqui é tão nova
03:41
Now, this species here is so new
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que nem tenho permissão
para dizer o nome dela ainda,
03:43
I'm not even allowed
to tell you its name yet,
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03:45
but I can tell you
it's a new species from Mexico,
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mas posso dizer que é
uma nova espécie vinda do México,
e provavelmente já está extinta,
03:48
and it's probably already extinct.
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03:50
It's probably extinct because
the only known cave system it's from
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e isso porque o único sistema
de cavernas conhecido
foi destruído quando construíram
uma barragem nas proximidades.
03:54
was destroyed when a dam was built nearby.
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03:56
Unfortunately for cavefishes,
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Infelizmente para peixes-cegos
seu habitat de águas subterrâneas
03:58
their groundwater habitat
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04:00
is also our main source of drinking water.
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é também a nossa principal
fonte de água potável.
04:03
Now, we actually don't know
this species' closest relative, yet.
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Nós não conhecemos o parente
mais próximo desta espécie, ainda.
Não parece haver
nenhuma outra no México,
04:07
It doesn't appear to be
anything else in Mexico,
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talvez por isso haja algo em Cuba,
04:10
so maybe it's something in Cuba,
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04:12
or Florida, or India.
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na Flórida, ou na Índia.
Mas seja o que for,
04:14
But whatever it is, it might tell us
something new about the geology
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ela pode nos dizer algo novo
sobre a geologia do Caribe,
04:19
of the Caribbean, or the biology
of how to better diagnose
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ou a biologia de como diagnosticar
melhor certas formas de cegueira.
04:22
certain types of blindness.
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Mas espero poder descobrir essa espécie
antes que seja extinta também.
04:24
But I hope we discover this species
before it goes extinct too.
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04:28
And I'm going to spend my one life
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E vou passar a minha vida
04:30
as an ichthyologist
trying to discover and save
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como ictiólogo tentando descobrir e salvar
esses pequenos peixes-cegos humildes
04:34
these humble little blind cavefishes
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that can tell us so much
about the geology of the planet
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que podem nos dizer muito
sobre a geologia do planeta
e a biologia de como enxergamos.
04:40
and the biology of how we see.
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04:42
Thank you.
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Obrigado.
04:43
(Applause)
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(Aplausos)
Translated by Maricene Crus
Reviewed by Cláudia Sander

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Prosanta Chakrabarty - Ichthyologist
Prosanta Chakrabarty studies fish to help explain the evolution of human beings and our planet.

Why you should listen

Dr. Prosanta Chakrabarty is an Associate Professor and Curator of Fishes at the Museum of Natural Science and Department of Biological Science at Louisiana State University.

Chakrabarty is a systematist and an ichthyologist studying the evolution and biogeography of both freshwater and marine fishes. His work includes studies of Neotropical (Central and South America, Caribbean) and Indo-West Pacific (Indian and Western Pacific Ocean) fishes. His natural history collecting efforts include trips to Japan, Australia, Taiwan, Madagascar, Panama, Kuwait and many other countries. He has discovered over a dozen new species including new anglerfishes and cavefishes.

The LSU Museum of Natural Science fish collection that Chakrabarty oversees includes nearly half a million fish specimens and nearly 10,000 DNA samples covering most major groups of fishes. He earned his PhD at the University of Michigan and his undergraduate degree is from McGill University in Montreal. He has written two books including A Guide to Academia: Getting into and Surviving Grad School, Postdocs and a Research Job. He is also a former Program Director at the National Science Foundation. He was named a TED Fellow in 2016 and a TED Senior Fellow in 2018.

More profile about the speaker
Prosanta Chakrabarty | Speaker | TED.com